American comics: I am full of martial virtues and I love to be kind to others.

And he actually felt genuinely moved.

Even more dangerously, that initial spark made him automatically start thinking about the future: he could meet her at that Italian restaurant on the Upper West Side on Thursday, or at an art exhibition near Central Park; which one would she like; should he change into a jacket that didn't look like he was about to draw his gun at any moment; did this mean a possibility of moving forward that hadn't happened in a long time?

Even he himself felt that the idea came a little too quickly.

But speed isn't always a bad thing. At least, people think so when they're in the right place.

-

But as soon as Victoria got into the car, half of the smile on her face faded the moment the door closed.

She leaned back in the back seat, took her phone out of her bag, and when the screen lit up, the unread message at the top was from a contact with no name, only an encrypted relay number.

The content is very short:

"You saw him?"

Victoria looked at the three words, her expression not changing much. She first smoothed out the corner of the napkin Lynn had just written to her, which she had then casually picked up; it still bore a faint stain of whiskey. Then she lowered her head and typed:

"I saw them. They were more cautious than described in the documents, but not difficult to approach."

The other party replied almost immediately:
"He took the bait?"

Victoria paused for a second before replying:

"We've already made plans for the next time."

After sending the message, she glanced out the car window at the receding street scene. Her quiet, beautiful, teacher-like face was reflected in the glass, along with the barely perceptible calmness in her eyes.

The driver glanced at her in the rearview mirror: "Where to, ma'am?"

Victoria gave an address in the East End of the city, not the address she had just told Lynn.

After starting the car, she looked down at her phone again.

The other party's new message was only one sentence:
"Continue. Don't let him notice."

Victoria locked her phone, put it back in her bag, then let out a soft sigh, leaned back in her chair, and closed her eyes. The gesture looked like the relaxation after a successful date, but only she knew it wasn't.

She knew Lynn wasn't someone who was easily fooled.

He also knows that precisely because he is not, he must take every step just right.

Too fast, and it will seem contrived. Too slow, and you'll miss the window of opportunity. Too enthusiastic, and it will trigger his work-induced wariness. Too indifferent, and you won't catch a man who's just beginning to believe that "maybe love is just around the corner."

What's most useful is often that touch of realism that lies somewhere in between.

A genuine smile, genuine empathy, truly looking at him, making him feel understood, and even genuinely enjoying the conversation itself. Because only when part of it is real can the fake part hold up.

Victoria is very good at this.

As she tucked her hair back behind her ears, her fingertip unconsciously touched the pearl on her earlobe. It was a little habit she'd developed many years ago, usually only occurring when she needed to remind herself "who she was playing."

Outside the car window, the evening light of New York City flowed by inch by inch.

Meanwhile, Lynn had already entered the subway entrance and was on the escalator sending a message to Gwen.

"I felt more like a normal person today. How about you?"

A few minutes later, Gwen replied:

"I woke up from my afternoon nap, took two showers, and threw away the clothes I wore last night. Now I'm eating yogurt that's almost expired from the fridge. How normal is your definition of a 'normal person'?"

As Lynn looked at that sentence, an image of her sitting cross-legged on the sofa, her hair disheveled, frowning as she ate yogurt naturally came to mind, and she couldn't help but smile.

He replied:

"It's a little more normal than you think. I also had some alcohol."

Gwen replied quickly:

"one person?"

Lynn stared at her phone screen for two seconds.

These two seconds are very short, but enough for one to feel a subtle shift in their mind.

Then he typed:
"No. My colleague dragged me to meet someone."

After sending it, Lynn herself felt that the sentence was somewhat like making an unnecessary explanation.

Gwen took about ten seconds to reply:
"Oh? And what was the result?"

The subway was pulling into the station, and a gust of wind suddenly swept up from the tunnel. Lynn stood behind the yellow safety line, looking at the words on the screen, and suddenly remembered Victoria's expression when she pushed the tissues towards her, remembered her saying "Come ask me out," and remembered that she had indeed already planned for Thursday in her mind.

So he told the truth:
"The chat went well. We've made plans for next time."

This time, Gwen did not reply immediately.

The subway doors opened, and the crowd surged. Lynn boarded, gripping the handrail and standing still, her phone screen still displaying the message, "Had a good chat. See you next time." Almost a minute later, Gwen sent three words:
"That's good."

There was no further expression or questioning.

As Lynn looked at those three words, the initial ease in her heart suddenly turned into something indescribable. It was like a glass of wine that seemed smooth on the palate, but a few seconds after swallowing, a vague, bitter aftertaste emerged.

But before he could think it through, a second message from Gwen popped up on the other end of his phone:
"At least you didn't completely disable normal social functions. That's something to celebrate."

This was in her usual tone, slightly sarcastic, yet also lighthearted. Lynn replied with:
"Your evaluation sounds like a forensic examination."

Gwen replied:
"I almost got to know the forensic doctor last night, so it's normal for my feelings to be affected."

After that, the two chatted a few more times, mostly about trivial things. Gwen mentioned that the convenience store owner downstairs recognized her when she didn't come home last night and asked if she had gone out on a date; Lynn said the owner's intuition was pretty accurate; Gwen replied that he shouldn't flatter himself. The conversation wasn't serious, and they didn't bring up the phrase "It went well. Let's meet again."

Everything seemed quite ordinary.

But in reality, the truly extraordinary part was quietly progressing on another front. At the same moment, Victoria had returned to her apartment, which was not open to the public and was not near Columbia University. She took off her earrings, hung up her coat, and went to her desk to take a very thin file folder from the bottom drawer.

The document bag had no name on it, only a printed code.

She wrote down her impressions of meeting Lynn today on a blank memo page: reaction speed, tone of voice, threshold for avoiding personal questions, protective habits regarding work content, attitude when mentioning colleagues, how she vaguely handled the source of the hand injury, drinking speed, and—when mentioning "normal relationships," that undeniable hint of easing in her eyes.

She paused writing for a little longer on the last line.

Then, add the following in the corner of the page:

"The emotional window has now opened. We can continue to explore further."

After she finished writing, she put the paper back in the file bag, took a picture of the two most crucial lines with her phone, and sent it to the encrypted number.

Soon, the other party replied:
"Well done. We'll let you know the next steps."

Victoria stared at the words for a long time without moving.

It was getting dark outside the window, and the light between the buildings cast a cold reflection on the glass. She stood by the table, suddenly reaching out to press her temples, as if finally letting go of the perfectly composed expression she had maintained all day.

Actually, she didn't dislike Lynn.

In fact, chatting with him was easier than she expected, and she felt more genuinely interested than the task required. But that didn't change the fact that she had a purpose in approaching him, nor did it change the fact that she knew what she was doing from the beginning.

The rain had just stopped on Thursday evening.

The thin layer of gray in the sky above Manhattan hadn't completely dissipated, but the streets were already bright again. The pavement was wet, and car headlights and neon lights cast intermittent glows in the puddles. Pedestrians, holding umbrellas they hadn't yet folded, walked a little faster than usual. As Lynn stood in front of the restaurant on the Upper West Side, she happened to see a waiter straightening the last olive tree that had been blown askew by the wind.

He arrived seven minutes earlier than the agreed time.

This advance notice wasn't much, but it was very much in line with his usual habits. It was enough time to survey the surroundings, memorize the location of the exits, the restrooms, the blind spots at the corner of the second-floor staircase, and whether the tables near the windows were easily visible from outside. His professional habits were still there, just more subdued than usual. At least tonight, he outwardly appeared to be a normal man coming to an appointment.

Victoria arrived just in time.

She walked over from the street corner without an umbrella, clearly having just gotten out of her car. Her light blonde hair was looser than before, and she wore a camel-colored long trench coat over a black knit dress with a simple neckline. She was still wearing those pearl earrings. As she approached, she carried a hint of the chill of the post-rain air, but her smile was gentle.

“I thought I would be the first one there,” she said.

"I don't like making people wait."

"Is this a virtue, or a sign of controlling behavior?"

"It depends on who it is." Lynn opened the door for her.

Victoria glanced at him, seemingly pleased by his ambiguous yet tactful reply, and a slight smile played on her lips: "Then I'll take it as a good point for now."

The restaurant was warmly lit and not too noisy. There was a row of semi-enclosed booths at the back, and two-seater tables by the window, offering views of the rain-washed street scene. Lynn had booked a table slightly towards the back, not too conspicuous, but not too secluded either. As the waiter led them to their seats, Victoria casually handed him her trench coat, a natural gesture that showed no awkwardness at being watched.

After their last meeting, Lynn didn't actually contact her much.

On one hand, he was genuinely busy; on the other hand, he wasn't the type to rush into building intimacy through a barrage of messages. But Victoria seemed to understand the value of this distance. She'd only sent two messages in the past few days: one late Tuesday night, saying she'd just finished grading students' papers and was almost killed by "the confidence and emptiness of a twenty-year-old"; the other at noon today, asking if he remembered their date that evening. Relaxed, restrained, and not overstepping boundaries—neither cold nor pressured.

This rhythm was originally comfortable for Lynn.

At least for the first half hour tonight, everything remains the same.

They started by chatting about light topics. Victoria mentioned that in her class on Wednesday, she was discussing immigrant literature in late 19th-century New York, and a student insisted that all complex characters could be reduced to "family problems." Lynn, after listening, simply said, "You've already shown a lot of professionalism by not throwing chalk at him." Victoria laughed for a long time and said that for a moment she really wanted to do that.

The conversation then naturally drifted to another topic. She asked Lynn if he was still busy with work these past few days, and he answered steadily, only saying that there were some follow-up matters to be finished; she didn't press further, only saying, "Your 'stirred things up' analogy last time sounds like it'll stay in my head for a long time." Lynn said, "That means I'm pretty good at making things up." Victoria rested her chin on her hand and looked at him: "No, I think it means you're too used to hiding the real parts."

This statement carries a hint of probing, yet it doesn't cross any lines.

Lynn looked at her and smiled faintly: "And you, will you take out the real part?"

“Of course not.” Victoria’s candor was almost beautiful. “Isn’t the most interesting part of adult dating to be testing the waters and deciding which aspects are worth bringing up?”

Lynn admitted that this was quite her style.

Clever, not direct, leaving room for maneuver, and with a slight but not unpleasant sharpness.

The conversation continued smoothly after the food was served. Victoria talked about spending a year in London in her early years, researching Victorian women's diaries; Lynn, unusually, shared her experience of freezing to death in a Boston winter during her university years. She listened attentively, occasionally asking a few follow-up questions on certain details, but always stopping at a point that was neither offensive nor offensive.

This all makes perfect sense.

It was so logical that it seemed as if someone had calculated it beforehand, figuring out the rhythm that would most easily make a habitually wary person lower their guard.

What truly brought that wariness back to the surface was a small incident that occurred before the dessert.

The music in the restaurant had just changed, and two young men who looked like Columbia University students sat down at the next table. One of them was so excited that he couldn't keep his voice down, and he was whispering to his companion about "the blue trails we saw in Queens last week," "the forums are saying that the mutants' abilities have gone out of control," and "the city hall is suppressing the news again."

Such rumors are not uncommon in New York.

As long as there are people and things in the city that defy explanation by ordinary rules, conversations in bars, forums, taxi backseats, and late-night apartments will continue to generate all sorts of half-true, half-false stories. Some are fearful, some are curious, some use it as an opportunity to elaborate, and some simply use it as conversation fodder.

Lynn always automatically filters out this kind of content.

But just as he was about to steer the conversation back to the out-of-print poetry collection Victoria had just mentioned, she suddenly asked, seemingly casually:
"Speaking of which, do you ever come into contact with those kinds of cases?"

Lynn looked up: "Which category?"

Victoria lightly touched the rim of her plate with her fork, her tone very soft, as if she had only been slightly intrigued by the people at the next table.

“Mutants,” she said. “There have been more and more rumors about them in New York in recent years. Some are like urban legends, and some are… really outrageous. You must encounter them a bit more or less in your job, right?”

The moment the words left his mouth, Lynn's face remained unchanged.

But his inner nerves tightened almost immediately.

too suddenly.

It wasn't that the word "mutant" itself was sudden, but rather that its appearance at this time and place, and in Victoria's mouth, seemed rather out of place. (End of Chapter)